


Fall From Grace

by parentaladvisorybullshitcontent



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Tour Bus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-07 07:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10355097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parentaladvisorybullshitcontent/pseuds/parentaladvisorybullshitcontent
Summary: The kiss is a mistake.Not that Josh regrets it afterwards or anything, but he genuinely didn't mean to do it. He's messing around, aiming for somewhere dumb and platonic so Tyler can wipe the imaginary saliva off and complain at him and they can both slope off to their bunks still soft with earlier laughter.Except Tyler moves at the same time.In which tours and friendships mix a little too well.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so long story short I am TERRIFIED. This is my first ever fic in this fandom and it's so badly researched. Just like, suspend your disbelief. For me. Pls. And also to save me losing my mind this is set in an au where neither of them have/had significant others bc like...I could not handle the drama of writing that, I like an easy life
> 
> Shout outs to the wonderful Phantom and Grace and Cristina and the Group Chat, all of whom gave me that support™ and let me whine about this <3 And an ENORMOUS shout out to the wonderful Eno in particular for like????? letting me ask dumb questions and allowing me to be clueless and awful?????? bless u, this is for u buddy <3 <3
> 
> Title from Galapogos by the Smashing Pumpkins

“How did you find this?”

 _This_ is a darkened basketball court just down the street from the venue, floodlit and surrounded by high fences. They're the only ones out here, dusk turning the sky orange all around them. Just two anonymous guys and a basketball, just the way Josh knows Tyler likes it.

“Some guy asked me if I played,” Josh says, catching the ball when Tyler throws it.

He throws it straight back again and Tyler catches it with ease. Of course he does, even taking a couple steps back. Josh does too, bracing himself for the next catch.

“Are you sure you played, dude?” Tyler says. It’s the croaky voice of some guy they met months ago. He couldn’t handle the thought of Tyler playing basketball, and kept telling them about how shocked he was. He’s kind of become a supporting character on tour by now, Tyler bringing out this increasingly exaggerated impression of him every time there’s a quiet moment. “Like, are you _sure_?”

“Like, with your height, man, are you _sure_ you’re sure?” Josh says, grinning when Tyler pauses before passing the ball to laugh. “His face when you nailed that throw.”

“I know, right?” He finally throws, and Josh manages to catch but only because he lunges forwards. As if in response, Tyler takes another step backwards.

“Oh fuck you, dude, you know I can’t catch from that far.”

Tyler doesn’t exactly say _but I can_ , but he thinks it. Josh can tell.

“Whatever,” Josh says, rolling his eyes and taking another step backwards himself. The glint of amusement in Tyler’s eyes makes him feel weird, and he swallows and ends up fumbling the pass. Tyler catches it anyway – of course he does, side-stepping like he instinctively knew Josh was gonna fuck it up.

“Ha,” Tyler says, grinning at him. “Reigning champion.” And he takes another step backwards.

“Asshole,” Josh says, but prepares for the throw all the same.

-

When someone climbs into Josh's bunk later that night, all he does is shuffle closer to the wall to give whoever it is some space.

 _What's up_ , he wants to say, but he's too tired.

“Mm,” He says instead. His eyes feel too heavy to open.

“Sorry,” Tyler says, patting his hip. He sounds wide awake, and that alone has Josh forcing his gluey eyes open and rolling over onto his back. Tyler's hand stays where it is, fingers picking agitatedly at a loose thread at the hem of Josh's t-shirt.

“'S'up,” Josh manages to say through a yawn, rubbing his eyes and trying to make them focus on Tyler, whose face is indistinct in the dark. “Everything okay? Do you -” He yawns again, his eyes watering. “D'you want me to get up?”

“No,” Tyler whispers. “It's okay, I'm fine. You should sleep.”

“'kay,” Josh says, softly, turning over completely so they're facing each other. “D'you -? Are we, like,” He puts a hand on Tyler's side and then takes it away again. “Is touching okay?”

If Tyler says no then he'll wake up properly, he thinks. Not wanting to be touched generally means bad stuff, so Josh'll have to get up and sort that shit out.

“Touching's good,” Tyler says, and Josh relaxes a little. “You sure you don't mind?”

“Nah,” Josh says, yawning. Tyler shifts around so he's facing away, the smell of his hair close to Josh's nose. When Josh throws an arm over his side Tyler's hand finds his, a warm weight there in the dark. “S'good.”

He falls asleep within minutes.

When he wakes up, Tyler's sitting up next to him, making weird slurping noises and tapping around on his phone.

“I got signal,” He says, when Josh makes a noise.

Josh's skin feels unpleasantly clammy, and his feet are tangled up with the blankets, and fuck, being awake _sucks_ in the morning.

“Ugh,” He says.

“I found your Red Bull stash too,” Tyler says, and makes that slurping noise again.

“Ugh,” Josh repeats, throwing his arm over his eyes for a moment, adjusting to the morning and the warmth of Tyler next to him. “You gotta drink it like that?”

Tyler slurps again in response, louder this time.

“You want some?”

“In a minute,” Josh says, not moving.

“You should text your mom.”

“ _You_ should text my mom.”

Tyler laughs, making Josh laugh too, automatic and easy.

“I did, actually,” Tyler says, the words heavy with laughter. Josh thinks his voice sounds the best when it's like that. “She told me to get you to text. And, like, thanked me for last night-”

“Ugh, get _out_ ,” Josh says, grinding his knuckles into the side of Tyler's thigh and hiding his grin in the pillow at the sound of Tyler's helpless giggles.

-

They’re still too close to their van days to be sick of the bus. Josh knows that. And yet sometimes being stuck in there for months on end, sleeping on a thin bunk mattress and trying to pick the exact moment to pour milk on your cereal without giving your socks a shower can get a little tiring.

Tyler’s developed a term for the point when tour starts to get old and you miss home and a stationary bed with a good mattress, mainly based on the whole cereal thing.

“You got your milk face on,” He says, when he traipses into the lounge one morning. Josh thinks it’s morning, he doesn’t know. He woke up before everyone else for the first time all tour, and ended up wasting his precious alone time leaning on the crappy little lounge table, chin in hand, trying to figure out why he'd bothered getting out of bed in the first place.

“Huh?” He says, feeling slow and stupid. His brain switches on long enough to hug Tyler's arms close when he throws them around him from behind and squeezes, holding on tight.

“Milk face,” Tyler says, breath tickling Josh's ear. “You okay? Wanna watch a movie?”

Josh laughs. He can feel Tyler laughing too, right before he lets go.

“Shut up,” Josh says.

There's been some kind of terrible mistake and they only have one DVD on the bus, have done for weeks. It's a French movie or something, which wouldn't be a problem except none of them could work the subtitles on the first night of tour and a lot of it was random scenery and insipid background music with no, like, actual plot or interesting points to speak of. They've been talking about buying some DVDs for weeks but nobody's actually done it yet.

“I meant, like, after the next stop,” Tyler says. “Rest stops have DVDs, right?”

“I guess,” Josh says, stretching.

“So we’ll buy DVDs,” Tyler says, throwing himself into the seat opposite.

-

They don't buy DVDs.

Which wouldn't matter so much if they had a show to distract them, but they have a couple of days free, just driving between places. Tour bus limbo, Tyler calls it (and no, the other guys really didn't appreciate that one time they actually tried to play _tour bus limbo_. They'd ended up nearly breaking the lounge door, and Josh got this huge black bruise on his thigh that wouldn't fade for _weeks_ ).

They'd spent the evening messing around in the back lounge, playing cards, and then one by one everyone had sloped off to other places – to call parents or girlfriends, or read in their bunks, or do other stuff in their bunks that Josh'd rather not think about.

Which means 3am finds Tyler and Josh alone together, taking another shot at the boring French movie.

“I mean, like, there must be subtitles,” Josh says, scrolling through the DVD menu. “Like, there have to be, right?”

“What's subtitle in French, anyway?” Tyler asks.

When Josh looks over at him he's sprawled out on the couch, neck arched in this way that makes it hard not to stare for too long at his throat. Which is dumb, because a throat's a throat – Josh has one, and they're not a big deal.

Tyler's is peppered with stubble today. Josh swallows and doesn't think about the scratchiness he'd feel if he had the guts to reach his hand out, while Tyler says shit like _le subtitle_ to the ceiling and laughs at himself.

“Le subtitle,” Josh repeats, laughing himself.

They end up losing their shit and laughing for like ten minutes, until Josh's stomach hurts and Tyler's wiping tears from his eyes.

“Stop, stop, it hurts,” Tyler says when he catches Josh's eye and the pair of them crack up again. He makes this dumb noise like a steam train, this _just got done with laughing_ noise, and Josh just grins at him like an asshole because that's his best friend, right there.

As if on cue, Tyler props himself up on his elbows and says, “After all of that did you actually find the subtitles?”

“I honestly,” Josh starts, but Tyler smiles at him, evidently holding back a laugh. Josh ends up laughing a little too, looking away and pressing his lips together, thinking of all the sad stuff he possibly can to try and stop himself. He can see Tyler shaking with silent giggles out of the corner of his eye, which isn't helping at all. “I honestly do not know if there are any subtitles, dude.”

“'Cause it's all in French,” Tyler says, in this overwhelmed kind of voice that usually means he's seconds away from losing it again.

“Yeah, 'cause – 'cause that's not a language I speak, you know?” Josh says, already laughing before he's halfway done. “Shh, shh, we're gonna wake the guys up.”

“They're not asleep,” Tyler says, still laughing a little, hands resting on his stomach. Josh ends up watching his face as his smile fades and he yawns, forehead creased, looking younger somehow. “What d'you wanna do tomorrow?”

“Sleep,” Josh says, resisting the urge to point out that it's tomorrow already. “And, like, get ice cream.”

“And DVDs.”

“And DVDs,” Josh says, in danger of laughing again, gesturing at the DVD menu on screen, with its weird soft string music playing on a loop in the background. “Man, I might, like, crash.”

Tyler stretches, making a soft noise that makes Josh feel awkward about looking at him. When he looks back, Tyler's looking back at him, sleepily.

It's these moments that make staying up 'til past 3 worth it, every time. The moments when they could be back in Tyler's apartment, just the two of them, waiting for the sun to come up with energy drinks and endless blankets.

“Like, crash crash, or like, _crash_?” Tyler says, making air quotes for the second one.

“Like, crash crash,” Josh says. “Need to be awake for ice cream.” He pauses. “D'you wanna, like...?” He gestures in the direction of the bunks. It's always more comforting, somehow, having Tyler in his bunk with him, even though those things are way too small to have two people crammed into them.

“Mm, maybe later,” Tyler says. “I can't move.”

“Okay,” Josh says. “Well, like, text me if you need me, okay?”

Tyler nods and Josh shuffles along the couch to him to say goodnight properly. When he gets close enough, he braces a hand on the back cushion of the couch and just looks at Tyler for a moment, breathing in the smell of him this close.

The kiss is a mistake.

Not that Josh _regrets_ it afterwards or anything, but he genuinely didn't mean to do it. He's messing around, aiming for Tyler's nose or his eyebrow or something, somewhere dumb and platonic so Tyler can wipe the imaginary saliva off and complain at him and they can both slope off to their bunks still soft with earlier laughter.

Except Tyler moves at the same time. It's so unacceptably cliché that Josh could almost get mad about it. It sounds so fake, like something right out of a terrible movie. And he knows that if he ever admitted to anyone that their first kiss was a genuine, honest to God accident it'd sound like he was trying to erase it somehow – trying to absolve himself of blame.

Which is bullshit, because it's only the first kiss that happens accidentally. The second one, the third one, the – the _everything_ that happens afterwards, none of that shit is remotely accidental, and Josh doesn't want to erase any of it.

But that first time? Total honest to God mistake. He moves to plant this stupid joke kiss and Tyler moves to – do _something_ , Josh doesn't even know, and then Tyler's lips are dry and unfamiliar against his own.

There's a moment when he freezes there, his mouth against Tyler's, and then he pulls back, heat rushing to his face.

They look at each other for a moment, and Josh experiences one of those dizzying moments when he realises – truly, honestly realises – that Tyler's separate to him. There's a different body and brain and heart keeping them apart, and Josh is never gonna know exactly what happens behind his eyes, no matter how many songs he hears or 5am confessions he listens to or hugs he gets.

Tyler's face is unreadable in that moment, but that alone says a lot. Josh thinks if the kiss had been something they were both gonna ignore Tyler would've laughed and shoved him off, but they just stay there, frozen still for the longest moment, staring each other down.

Then Tyler's tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip, and Josh's apology dies in his throat. The second time he leans in, it's completely, totally on purpose, and Tyler moves to meet him in this eager way that makes Josh feel like he missed a step going downstairs.

It's surreal at first, kissing his best friend. Mainly because it's _Tyler_ , and they were laughing about the French for subtitle literally two seconds ago, and Josh can smell the fading sweetness of his deodorant all around him. When they move so they're awkwardly entangled on the couch he can feel the press of Tyler's body under him in a way that's completely different to all the times they've slept close together. This is different – Tyler's shifting restlessly below him, and when he grabs hold of Josh's shoulder and squeezes Josh thinks maybe he's crushing him, maybe Tyler doesn't want this, so he pulls away, gasping, his mouth feeling weirdly tender.

“No, no,” Tyler mumbles almost instantly, his hand curling around the back of Josh's neck like it belongs there. “I just-”

He leans up to kiss Josh before he even explains himself, and Josh could easily get lost in this – in the stroking of Tyler's fingers at the nape of his neck, in the stale sweat and aftershave smell of him, in the press of the two of them together, Tyler's mouth warm and tasting sweet, somehow.

There's just something about the _strength_ of him. There's always been something like that – Josh's eyes have always been treacherously drawn to the line of his arms or legs or the cut of his jaw, and he's gotten so good at forcing the thoughts down, suppressing his desire to touch, and now he feels like he _can_ touch he doesn't know what to do with himself. It's not like he went in with a plan, this was a total mistake and now he's rubbing up against his best friend and Tyler's making this indistinct _noise_ into his mouth -

There's a thud from the direction of the bunks and they spring apart so fast Josh feels dizzy. He ends up standing up somehow with no clue as to how he got there, just as one of the guys bursts into the lounge muttering something about Pepsi.

“I, uh,” Josh is trying to calm his breathing down, pointedly not looking at Tyler. He feels like the moment's broken and if he looks at him he's scared of what he'll see. “I'm gonna, uh, I'll see you guys tomorrow.”

Pulling the curtain of his bunk shut after he's scrambled inside doesn't feel like enough. He wants a door to hide behind, somewhere he can take refuge.

He gulps down a breath, staring at the ceiling of his bunk and pressing his lips together. They feel fine, they feel ordinary – he feels like they should be tingling.

Feeling like a coward, he scrambles to untangle the wires of his earphones so he can lose himself in music before he has to hear Tyler coming through to bed.

Despite that, he catches himself listening out for a long while, and doesn't hear anything at all except for the other guys snoring.

-

He stays in his bunk for as long as possible the next morning.

It's not like they have anywhere to be today. Their next show isn't until Saturday, and two days off in a row like this are rare, so nobody really expects Josh to be up and out of bed before, like, 2pm.

Of course, it's not like anyone else knows what happened last night. Nobody except Tyler, and Josh hasn't heard any noise from his bunk at all. Normally there's always _something_ , always a scratch against the flimsy back wall or a sigh or a knock, the two of them talking in low voices so they don't wake everyone else up.

There's nothing today. For the first time, Josh actually lies there and thinks about how dumb it is that he can be so close to Tyler and yet so separate at the time time, a stupid layer of flimsy wood or whatever the fuck bunks are made out of between them.

If this was a regular day, he thinks, a regular day off, he'd kick the base of Tyler's bunk to wake him up, or send him some stupid meme.

This is why people don't make out with their friends, he thinks, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. Like, people don't do that, ever. And on the occasions they do, it's not like Josh has any of the usual excuses to fall back on. He wasn't wasted, he wasn't out of it, it was an _accident_.

It was an accident 'til it happened. It's like in that one moment he realised that maybe he'd wanted something like that for a while. Maybe for a long time he's been looking too long at Tyler when he's been not paying attention, when he's been poring over his notebook or looking out of van windows or eating curly fries. Maybe he's been pushing it down all this time, forcing it to the back of his mind, trying not to worry about it.

It's too late for that now.

But – it's not like Tyler had pushed him away, or anything. Like, whatever the opposite of pushing someone away is, he'd done that instead. And Josh doesn't know what to think about it. He doesn't know what to do or to say, because it was _him_ who'd ran off to his bunk after it all. And Tyler hadn't tried to get in with him, or even texted him, which is the weirdest thing because they're always texting each other one way or another, even if they're just sitting next to each other on the couch.

Josh considers the whole situation. He puts himself in Tyler's position (which is impossible because he has no idea what Tyler was thinking at all, because they haven't talked about it because Josh _bailed_ ). Someone makes out with you then literally walks out without even saying, like, _oh, hey, that was great, we should really do that again sometime_.

Josh thinks he'd probably feel like he'd messed up, somehow. He'd feel like shit. Especially if the roles were reversed and it'd been Tyler doing all the, like, accidental kissing and the walking right out afterwards.

He'd probably have felt something like how it must feel to get a gift you always wanted and then have the giver snatch it out of your hands and kick you in the face.

Feeling uncomfortably hot with worry and embarrassment, Josh slips his phone out from under his pillow and sends Tyler a text.

_Dude we should talk_

He holds his breath, heart hammering, and squeezes his phone too tight in his hand when he hears Tyler's phone beep in his bunk.

And then – nothing. The message has been delivered, but Tyler doesn't open it.

Josh lasts about five minutes, just lying there painfully still, quietly freaking out. His brain's a mess of _maybe he's asleep, it's not like you can hear him moving around so he might just not know, he could be listening to music, he could think it's someone else's phone_ \--

A painfully long moment later, he decides to just roll out of his bunk and confront Tyler, face to face. He's gonna do it, he's gonna get up and he's gonna just say _look, dude, we really need to talk about this_ -

He's awkwardly knocking on the frame of Tyler's bunk and saying, “Tyler, you awake?” when the lounge door slides open and Tyler's standing there, wearing the same shirt he had on yesterday, his hair sticking up in the back like it always does in the morning.

“Oh, hey,” Josh says, his voice coming out weirdly quiet.

“Hey, what's up?” Tyler says, just walking over to his bunk and pushing the curtain open, reaching in to grab his hoodie. Josh is just stuck, helplessly watching him, feeling like he might die when Tyler reaches under his pillow for his phone and shoves it into his pocket without even looking at it. “You ready for ice cream, dude? Bathroom's free.”

“I, yeah,” Josh says, faintly, but Tyler's already walking off back into the lounge, the door sliding shut behind him.

-

Josh gets ready in a daze. The voices of the other guys are a muted buzz, like they're all miles and miles away. He pulls his shoes on and absently stares at his reflection in the bathroom, at the purple shadows under his eyes from too many late nights and the stubble bristling on his chin. He bares his teeth at himself in the mirror, trying to pull the weirdest face he can.

“Bet the ladies go nuts for that one,” Mark says, ducking into the bathroom. He reaches around Josh for the can of deodorant on the sink and ducks back out again.

Josh just looks back at himself in the mirror. Some sad guy who didn't get nearly enough sleep last night – or this week, or ever - looks back at him.

“Hey,” Mark says, ducking back into the bathroom. “You okay?”

“Sorry?” Josh says. “I – yeah, I'm great.” He forces out a smile. “Ice cream.”

“Ice cream,” Mark says, grinning and squeezing his shoulder. “You sure you're good?”

“I'm sure,” Josh says.

-

Most of all, he thinks, shrugging deeper into his hoodie, he feels humiliated.

He decided he was gonna wait outside while the other guys went into the ice cream place, because as much as he loves ice cream he doesn't think he can sit across from Tyler and watch him pull faces between each mouthful and not feel like a total asshole.

He just has to get over it, he thinks, pressing his fingers down hard on the shaved sides of his hair, staring down at the asphalt. He messed up, and – and that's on him, and it's totally up to Tyler if he doesn't ever want to talk about it -

\- but the way he'd kissed Josh back, though. Josh's thoughts keep treacherously straying back to that part of this whole mess, on the touch of Tyler's hands and the way his mouth felt. He knows that it was stupid of him to kiss and run the way he did, but if Tyler was gonna be all weird about it the least he could do was just, like, _not_.

Unless, Josh thinks, dread rising in his throat like bile, it'd been, like, a completely one sided thing. Like, Tyler hadn't wanted it at all, and Josh had just – just not noticed, or – or -

Someone sits down on the ground beside him. Josh doesn't even have to look to know who – the sound of his breath and the smell of his deodorant are enough. Not to mention the fact that he knows that when he's feeling particularly unsociable the guys all team up to send Tyler out as their representative to make sure everything's okay.

He swallows hard, staring across the lot. The sky's pale with clouds, weak rays of sunlight trying to push through. Josh looks over at a scrubby patch of grass across from the two of them and tries to convince himself that he's not gonna run.

“So,” Tyler says. Josh helplessly watches him out of the corner of his eye, the way his hands are resting on the knees of his shorts. “Like, I don't regret it.”

Josh feels like he chokes on a breath of air, like there's suddenly this super loud buzzing sound in his ears. He looks over at Tyler, barely believing what he just heard.

Tyler's staring off into the distance, bright spots of pink high on his cheekbones.

“Like, um,” Tyler says, twisting his fingers in the hem of his shorts, restlessly. “If you do, and it's weird now...that's fine, and we don't have to talk about it. But just so you know, I – I'm not sorry about it.”

Halfway through talking he actually looks at Josh, who suddenly feels pinned in place by Tyler's eyes. After earlier he hadn't expected them to _mention_ it, let alone have Tyler bring it up so casually like this.

“Anyway,” Tyler says, bringing both hands down onto his own knees in this weird gesture that Josh has seen his dad do on numerous occasions, the leg slap that means _well I guess we're done here_. “So, I'm gonna just – go get ice cream, you want some?”

“I liked it too,” Josh says, instead of the coward's way out, which would be asking for ice cream too and then giving Tyler this stupid manly slap on the shoulder like bros do. And they are bros, and Josh has manly backslapped him so many times, but he doesn't want to do that right now. “I mean – I don't regret it either. Like.” He shrugs awkwardly when Tyler looks back at him. “It was awesome, dude, I'm not gonna – not gonna lie. You're a good kisser.”

“Right,” Tyler says, sounding a little dazed. “Thank you.”

“I mean, like,” Josh continues, exasperated with himself. “It would've been, like...good anyway, like, even if you were a bad kisser. Like, kissing you would always be – pretty great.”

“Okay,” Tyler says. “So, like – you – if it happened again, that'd-”

“That'd be great,” Josh says, quickly. “I mean, if you – if you wanted it to happen again-”

“I just wanted to make sure you wanted-”

“Because, like I said, awesome-”

They end up stopping mid-sentence and grinning at each other, sheepishly.

“Dude,” Josh says. He's so relieved that he doesn't even think he can put it into words. “I – I thought you _hated_ me.”

“Come on,” Tyler says, voice so soft it almost gets lost on the breeze. “How could _that_ happen?”

“Like,” Josh says, trying to put it into words. “Like, if I kissed you and you, like, felt obligated to, like, you know...”

Tyler scoffs and pushes him in the shoulder, like they're having a disagreement on which _Pokémon_ game's better.

“If it felt like I was doing it because I was _obligated_ to, then, like, I was definitely doing something wrong.”

“No,” Josh says, the words heavy on his tongue. “It didn't feel like that.”

Tyler just looks at him. His eyes rest on Josh's mouth for a moment and Josh feels hot in that moment, like he's a firework, flaring bright and sudden at the first touch of a match.

“Good,” Tyler says, and gets up. He offers Josh his hand and he takes it even though he doesn't need it, pulling himself to his feet. “Come on, our ice cream's gonna get warm.”

He takes way too long to let Josh's hand go, the two of them walking across the parking lot joined together. Josh can't count the number of times they've done this – just held hands, just _because_ – but it feels different now.

Tyler letting him go feels like an amputation, but he soothes the cut by smiling at him, so big that Josh feels like the world rights itself again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took so long :'( I wish I had a busy life to blame but I'm a procrastinating piece of shit. Forgive me
> 
> Once again, massive thanks to the wonderful Eno!!! I'm so sorry you had to wait 9 years for this mediocrity <3 and a big shoutout to the wonderful Grace who is my hub of US related information, bless u <3
> 
> (fun drinking game idea: take a shot every time someone says "man" or "dude". Except don't do that bc you won't survive the chapter I'm sorry)

“Dude,” is the first thing Josh says when they drive past the old silo.

The two of them are kneeling on the couch, watching the scrubby grassland at the side of the road go by. It's some stupid time in the morning – one of those nights where they've stayed up so late that it's actually early now. There'd been a moment at about 4am, just after the sky had started turning from black to grey, when Tyler had disappeared into the bunk area and reappeared with two cans of Red Bull. When they'd both cracked them open simultaneously, grinning at each other like dumb kids, Josh knew they weren't gonna sleep at all.

“That'd be one for the list,” Tyler's saying, in between irritating slurps of his drink. When he lowers the can his bottom lip's damp. “Like, if we could stop, that'd be one.”

Silos are pretty high up Tyler's list of things he likes to climb away from home. He can climb shit in random areas on tour and get away with it, whereas back home it's like, he'd end up getting a rep for being the silo climbing guy, or whatever.

“I don't think there's been one in, like, a month?”

“Longer,” Josh corrects him. “'Cause we did that one – uh, right before I,” He gestures at himself, vaguely, tiredness getting the better of him. He means the time he sprained his shoulder and had to be taped up for two weeks.

“Your shoulder, yeah,” Tyler says, with a wistful sigh. “Man, it had a flat top and everything. We could've sat on it.”

They're quiet for a moment, Tyler looking out of the window and Josh sneaking looks at Tyler out of the corner of his eye.

They'd made out a little earlier but the pair of them had been too antsy, too worried about someone bursting into the lounge unexpectedly. Tyler kept saying “We can't,” and then diving back in for another kiss with like, extra _force_ or something, like he was trying to kill Josh somehow.

Josh is thinking of suggesting that they jam the lounge door shut (it really didn't survive the limbo incident all that well and it sticks sometimes) and just, like, go for it. Round two but without all of the bus interruption guilt. There's a moment when Tyler's taking a sip of Red Bull and he looks over at Josh at the same time, eyes bright in the greyish morning light, and Josh can feel the smile spreading over his face because he can tell he won't take any convincing at _all_.

Tyler's just skimming his can-cold fingers over the tops of Josh's when the bus starts slowing down.

They both look at each other, uncertain.

“No way,” Tyler says, even while Josh is leaning forwards towards the window. Forehead pressed to the cold glass, all he can see is the landscape rolling by slower and slower as the bus pulls in at the side of the road. “No way, have we broken down?”

Josh grins at him. Maybe it's the sleeplessness or maybe it's the fact that they're still not over having a bus, or maybe it's because Tyler's just Tyler, but instead of the usual stress you'd expect from an unexpected breakdown (a breakdown that'll make them late for their next hotel night, Josh thinks, the hotel night where they have a room all to themselves with a door that locks and a shower) there's definite glee shining in Tyler's eyes. Like, for sure.

“You're thinking about that silo,” He says. When Tyler laughs and covers his mouth with the sleeve of his hoodie, Josh can't help but laugh too, pushing him in the shoulder. “No way, dude, that's gonna be far off now. You can't just wander off in the middle of nowhere.”

“Wouldn't be wandering if you came with me,” Tyler points out. He says it with all the confidence of a guy who knows he always has Josh on his side, and Josh can't even get mad about it because he's right. If Tyler wanted to walk across a volcano 'cause he'd heard there was, like, a really good Taco Bell on the other side, Josh'd be like, _sure, man, I'll go get my lava-proof shoes_.

“We might not even have broken down,” Josh says, which isn't a no, and Tyler knows it isn't. When the bus rolls to a halt, he gets up. “I'll go find out.”

Before he ducks out of the lounge, there's a moment when Tyler's looking over at him, eyes all soft. Josh is helpless to do anything but take the few steps back over there and kiss his upturned face. The way Tyler reaches up and squeezes a hand at Josh's waist doesn't take his breath away, exactly, but it makes him want to forget about this whole breakdown situation and just lay on the couch with Tyler, pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist for a little while.

Except instead he just kisses him again, once, and says, “Won't be long.”

-

It turns out they've broken down after all. Josh has barely punched the code for the bus when Tyler's bursting out of there, carrying Josh's favorite hoodie and still nursing that can of Red Bull.

“It's a new one,” Tyler tells him as he shrugs on his hoodie. “We need, like, energy. You want some?”

“This is a bad idea,” Josh says, uncertainly. The morning air is cool and breezy, the greying sky shot through with pink and gold on the horizon. The driver had called for someone, said he thought it'd be an hour at the least before anyone could come out and look at the bus. On the occasions that this has happened before they've ended up sitting around fruitlessly, doing nothing and waiting for a recovery vehicle. At least this way they'd be spending the time doing something. “Want me to wake the others up?”

“Nah, let 'em sleep,” Tyler says, and reaches out to hold Josh's hand. “This is our thing. Come on.”

-

It takes them about twenty five minutes to get to the silo. It doesn't take them that long to spot it – the old brickwork rising up out of the scrubby grassland as soon as they make it over the first rise of land. The untended grass is pebbled with morning dew and it's soaking through into Josh's sneakers, right into his socks. There's a strangely warm smell in the air and Josh thinks maybe it'll be hot today when the sun properly comes up.

Tyler's can of Red Bull is sloshing as he walks. He occasionally slurps it and shoots Josh these looks because he only slurps to bug him. Josh is so caught up looking at him out of the corner of his eye that he keeps tripping over the bigger tufts of grass.

“Shut up,” He says when Tyler laughs.

Tyler reaches out to grab his hand again.

“Don't, like, die before we get there.”

“This was your idea, man, if I die it's on you.”

“I'll have to, like, get one of those one man band things,” Tyler says, gesturing vaguely at his shoulders. “With, like, drums strapped to my back or something.”

“Cymbals on your knees,” Josh says, grinning at him.

Tyler just laughs.

-

Josh knows better than to point out how messed up the silo is when they get close enough. It's in a dip in the land, towering above them, looking way bigger than it did when they were rumbling past it from the road.

The old brickwork's all crumbled and gross with stuff growing in the gaps, and the ladder up the side of it is rusty. The whole thing just reeks of abandonment and bad ideas, but Josh knows that isn't gonna stop Tyler from climbing it. If anything it'll probably encourage him to do it more.

“Did you bring your phone?” Tyler asks. Josh shakes his head. “Aw. I wanted to get a picture.”

“I feel like one of us should've brought a phone,” Josh says. “In case of, like, emergencies.” He pauses. He can feel exhaustion creeping up with him, each blink feeling a little like a sleep tease. He watches Tyler slurping away at his drink like he's in a dream, the can glinting in the morning light. “Did you really bring Red Bull but not your phone?”

Tyler grins at him.

“My priorities, are, like-”

“Great,” Josh finishes for him, smiling when he laughs. “Like, really, on point, you definitely know what's up.”

“Yeah, well, if anything goes wrong you'll just have to rescue me,” Tyler says. He flutters his eyelashes as he says it so it's obvious he's fucking around, like the words didn't make Josh's insides swoop.

“Sure, Princess Peach,” Josh says, deadpan. “You gotta get up there first.”

That loses them about ten minutes, because there's a moment when they're looking at each other and Josh thinks he got away with it, and then Tyler just bursts out laughing. Josh laughs too just because even he couldn't take that seriously, til he's clutching his stomach and feeling like he might throw up.

“Princess Peach,” Tyler says. “You – you really said that, are you serious-”

“Shut up, shut _up_ -”

“ _Princess Peach_ -!”

Once they've finally managed to stop (and Josh has gotten, like, way too caught up in the softness of Tyler's face when he's just been laughing, the shine of his eyes and the dumb noises he makes), Tyler starts preparing for the ascent.

Josh just lets him do his thing and pretends not to be watching, breathing in the sweet smell of damp grass. It's a smell that reminds Josh of summer and kind of makes him wish he was home.

But he loves this. He loves being in a field in the middle of nowhere with Tyler, who's setting his empty can down on the ground and rolling the sleeves of his hoodie up. He loves the sleepy sounds of birds in the nearby trees, and the dip and rise of the farmland all around them. He loves the occasional, distant whoosh of a car passing by, reduced to glinting little blocks on the road through the grass.

Tyler looks pale in the bad light, but that might be 'cause he's had a couple nights of bad sleep too. He's stretching his arms over his head in this way that makes Josh hide a laugh in the sleeve of his hoodie, which in turn makes Tyler laugh, even though he doesn't know what Josh is laughing at.

“What?”

“Stretching? Really?”

Josh gets a push in the shoulder for that.

“Warming up's important.”

“So's, like, not breaking your neck,” Josh says. Tyler just gives him that look, that _I'm gonna climb this stupidly high thing no matter what you say_ look. Josh is old friends with that look by now. “Okay, okay, sure, you're the frickin'...climbing master, whatever, I'm just saying.”

“It'll be okay,” Tyler says, and kisses him.

Josh wishes he wouldn't do that. Not the kissing – he needs as much of that as possible, like, all the time, dude, yes – but the _unexpectedness_ of it all. Josh needs at least twenty minutes to mentally prepare and have a glass of water and deal with the fact that Tyler's just gonna _do_ that – that Tyler _wants_ to do that, wants to plant these stroking little touches on his neck and just kiss him like that, like it's all he really wants.

Josh is pretty close to forgetting that his feet are really cold and wet in the grass when Tyler abruptly stops and starts climbing the rusty ladder behind him instead.

“Your – your fucking climbing thing, dude,” Josh says, feeling wrongfooted and breathless.

Tyler's laughing as he climbs, each step a metallic thunk on the ladder.

“Shut up and get up here,” He calls.

All Josh can think as he's following Tyler up the ladder is that this would be a really bad time to find out that this is some fake silo built for decoration, and the moment they get to the top and Tyler steps out to stand on it he'll collapse through and, like, die from some horrible injury and Josh'll have to go back and tell Mark and the guys he went and let Tyler get himself killed.

It's like he lives the whole thing behind his eyes in the space of a moment, so that when he comes back to himself he feels dizzy and weird.

“This is a bad idea,” He says.

“Hurry up, you gotta see the view from up here!”

“Tyler, dude, I don't feel good about this.”

“Just keep going, okay?” Tyler says, in his soft voice. It's the voice that makes Josh want to hug him. “It's fine up here, okay, just keep going.”

He feels more than a little like an asshole when he finally gets up there and Tyler's looking at him with big, worried eyes. It's that look he gets about him sometimes when Josh is freaking out, like he's gearing up to approach a wild animal. He reaches out to grab Josh's hand and squeeze, tightly, his other hand stroking Josh's arm.

“I was being a dick,” Josh explains, feeling better now that they're up here, relatively solid brickwork under their feet.

“So what else is new?” Tyler says, with a small smile, but doesn't let go of him. “Do you see this, though?”

Josh sees it. Maybe it's the exhaustion but he feels like the whole world's stretching out in front of them, the sweeping farmland and the black line of the road and the patchwork of farm country, the lines ploughs leave in the fields and the pink and gold of the morning sky.

“It's beautiful,” Josh says, because he knows he can say that and Tyler won't make a joke out of it.

“It's crazy,” Tyler says. He gives Josh a look. “Kind of makes me wanna yell. I dunno. Like this is some bad coming of age movie.”

“Oh yeah,” Josh says. “You'd be like, _my parents don't understand me_ , or something.”

“ _Fuck this town_ ,” Tyler says, in this dumb fake yelling voice that makes Josh laugh.

“Nailed it,” Josh says. He opens his mouth to say something else and ends up yawning so hard his jaw cracks. “Shit.”

“We should've slept,” Tyler says, ruefully. His thumb's making these soft little circles on the side of Josh's hand and it's stupid how much of his attention's caught up in that one little touch. He's just looking at Tyler, at his eyes and eyelashes, when Tyler starts looking over his shoulder, breaking the brief spell. “Oh, man, the bus! Look, it's over there!”

He tugs on Josh's hand and Josh turns in the right direction, finally spotting the bus in the distance, a block on the side of the road. He can't tell if any of the guys are up or anything, it just looks like a stranger's vehicle, somewhere he's never been before in his life.

“It's like, we're getting perspective,” Tyler says, quietly. “Like, literal perspective, 'cause we're, like, not in there anymore, and we've been stuck in there for weeks. And, like, actual perspective, 'cause we're so far away and it looks so small.”

All of that kind of flew way over Josh's head, but he can't stop staring at Tyler anyway. He kind of wants to kiss his dark circles, but even he thinks that's a little much. Like, never once before has he looked at someone he was into and thought, _shit, yeah, I'd kiss their three days of bad sleep eye bags_. Josh thinks maybe he's overtired, lack of sleep making him think a bunch of nonsense. He doesn't know. Doesn't change the way he feels, though.

Maybe it's Tyler and the way he's still stroking Josh's hand, this soft soothing touch, like he doesn't even realise he's doing it, like it's so inconsequential, but somewhere in Josh's stupid sleep-fugged brain he thinks if Tyler stopped he'd float away like an untethered balloon til he was just a speck in the pink sky.

“You know, like,” Tyler's eyes are bright. “I heard, maybe, there's this thing called the, like, um, silo club? For like, um, people who make out on silos. Like. Maybe.”

Josh laughs.

“You did _not_ ,” He says, making like he wants to pull away. Tyler just holds on tighter, grinning and red-faced. “Yeah, well, I heard there's a quitting the band club for when I quit the band-”

“Shut up-”

“Which is, like, right this second,” Josh says, the two of them getting closer and closer. “On grounds of, like, sexual harrassment.”

“Yeah, totally,” Tyler says. They're so close now that his quick breaths are tickling Josh's face. “Heard that lead singer's a complete asshole.”

“Yeah, fuck that guy,” Josh murmurs.

-

Later, they're out for pizza and Tyler's bragging about their adventure during the bus breakdown.

“Seriously, you could've fallen and died,” Mark says, probably for the millionth time. He has this look on his face like he knows that's not gonna be the last time he says it, too.

“I'm just saying, silo club,” Tyler says, and Josh nearly chokes on his coke. “That's a thing now. You _losers_ don't get to join. You snooze you lose.”

In the ensuing ruckus of complaints and dumb arguments about the validity of silo club, Tyler reaches out and grabs Josh's hand under the table, squeezing tight.

Josh just smiles hard at his plate and squeezes back.

-

It's an unspoken agreement that whatever it is that's going on between them has to stay secret.

It's weird. Josh isn't used to second guessing himself around Tyler, like, ever. He remembers back in their van days, this one time when Josh had been ill and Tyler had let him rest his head in his lap and he'd, like, sung to him and shit. He doesn't remember as clearly as he'd like, fever making everything dreamlike and strange, but sometimes if he pushes himself he can remember the cool sips of water Tyler had given him and the way he'd gently stroked Josh's hair off his forehead.

So, like, boundaries aren't really a thing with them. They don't care, nobody really cares.

Except now it sort of feels like everything's changed. He has to second-guess himself constantly. Resting his head on Tyler's shoulder to see his phone screen better in their dressing room – would he have done that before? Reaching out to squeeze Tyler's knee to reassure him because he's not in the mood where he could handle a hug, is that too much?

And then he has to keep reminding himself that as far as everyone else is concerned, nothing's changed. They're still just Josh and Tyler, the same as ever, and it's almost definitely just him who's worrying over every action and conversation.

Aside from that – aside from the fact that everything's changed – at the same time, nothing's really changed at all. They still make jokes together, still perform the same, Josh still comes off stage buzzing, feeling like he could take on the entire world. The only difference now is there are these moments when Tyler looks over at him, just _looks_ , and Josh feels like a stage light, glowing and radiating warmth, and his fingers fumble clumsily over whatever it was he was doing.

Tyler's looks have always kind of got him like that, but that was some distant echo of how this feels now.

But that's it, they don't have anything to tell. So it's all kind of secretive - as secretive as stuff like this can be on tour. Which means long waits til hotel nights and jamming the lounge door shut on the bus with some rolled up socks on late nights in front of the TV.

There's this one night when Tyler just crawls into Josh's bunk, which isn't a weird occurrence in itself but he'd made a point of pulling his own bunk curtain shut behind him, while the guys were all in the lounge talking and laughing and shit. Josh has been reading for an hour, trying to convince his restless limbs to keep still, and he thought Tyler was napping down there until he threw Josh's bunk curtain open and climbed in, closing the curtain behind him.

“Dude,” Josh says, tugging his earphones out of his ears and shoving them under his pillow.

“Dude,” Tyler mimics, slipping his hand under Josh's shirt.

Josh shudders and laughs, just because Tyler's smiling, shuffling closer in the tight space in the bunk and kissing him, softly.

“Sorry,” He murmurs, pulling back just as the sound of laughter drifts through from the lounge. “If you don't want to, we can-”

Josh just kisses him rather than going through the whole thing about how yeah, he really does want to.

That's a whole other problem, really. The last thing Josh wants to do is to come on too strong and scare Tyler away – away from whatever the hell it is they're doing (and he spends enough time worrying about that, in the dark with Tyler sleeping next to him, always worrying about the inevitable moment when he messes everything up and the band gets fucked up). It's like he's playing a part, reading lines in a play where he's this super casual character who isn't too invested.

That's until Tyler touches him, and all of his good intentions fall to pieces.

-

“I can't hear it.”

Tyler's laugh is something he _can_ hear, the rumble of it through his ribcage.

“I'm pretty sure it's there somewhere,” He says. When his hand finds the soft parts of Josh's hair and strokes, warm fingers against Josh's scalp, Josh wonders if this is what cats feel like. Like, the really happy ones.

“Duh,” Josh says, rather than admitting any of that out loud, and shifts so his ear's pressed a little more firmly to Tyler's chest, trying to find his heartbeat.

The only reason they're doing this is because their hotel room actually has air conditioning – Josh thinks otherwise they couldn't be all over each other like this, it'd be too hot and gross. Not that that's stopped them in all the other hotels they've stayed in so far, but that's not the point.

He can't hear anything. He feels like when he was a kid and he'd put seashells to his ear to hear the ocean and he'd never hear anything but the wind whistling. And everyone else would swear they heard the sea, and he'd press the shell hard to his ear and he'd just hear the wind, that was it.

“It's like shells,” He says, because he thinks Tyler will get it. “Like, trying to hear the ocean.”

Tyler hums, still stroking Josh's hair. Josh thinks he could fall asleep like this, his head resting here. His neck's twisted kind of awkwardly so his ear rests right against Tyler's ribcage, but he doesn't want to move for all the world.

His eyelids feel heavy, and he thinks he could fall asleep like this. Just trying to listen to Tyler's heart, feeling pleasantly warm and relaxed. Except, of course, the moment he does feel relaxed it's like the worry he pushes back all of the time just creeps back out again, black tendrils curling at the edges of all of his soft, happy thoughts.

Trying not to worry, in Josh's experience, isn't so much like trying to ignore the elephant in the room so much as it's like trying to ignore someone persistently poking him in the side of the head, over and over and over til he feels like he might scream.

In this instance, he's worrying about Tyler. About him and Tyler, and what it means, or what it doesn't mean.

He thinks of their first kiss, and that moment when he'd looked at Tyler and realised how separate they are. That's what worries him, if he's honest – the fact that he can never truly know if Tyler's really into all of this or if he's just indulging Josh, if Josh is the more invested one and Tyler's just, like, casual and doesn't really care about Josh at all.

The thought of that – of Tyler just going through the motions for fear of upsetting him – makes him want to throw up.

“Still nothing?” Tyler says. When Josh doesn't say anything, he squirms and adds, “Let's swap, I'll see if you're alive.”

“ _You're_ alive,” Josh says, stupidly, trying to sound like he's listening. Tyler's settling down next to him, resting his head on Josh's chest. He's quiet for a moment, and Josh doesn't know what to do with his hands, his own thoughts making him feel awkward.

“Head rubs are, like, good,” Tyler says.

Josh snickers, without really meaning to.

“Subtle,” He says, and reaches up to rub circles against Tyler's scalp through his hair.

“I live to be subtle,” Tyler says. Josh is about to tell him how much that doesn't make sense when he shifts his head, hand resting warm on Josh's side, and adds, “There it is. Found you.”

Josh closes his eyes and swallows, feeling tiny for a second. The hand resting on Josh's side starts tapping out this erratic rhythm against his skin.

“That's your heartbeat, dude,” He pauses, carrying on with his tapping. “Is it meant to be that fast?”

Josh breathes in, slowly, and tries to think of good things. He thinks about the fact that Tyler's touching him, that he knows if he made a dumb joke Tyler would laugh til he cried, that Tyler maybe apparently wants to kiss him sometimes. Those are all facts, and he tries to focus on them.

“I mean,” He says, breathing out and ruffling Tyler's hair. “You're kind of, like, lying all over me. So, like.”

“So I'm making it like that,” Tyler says, still tapping.

“Yeah,” Josh says, quietly. He gulps down a breath. “It's your head, dude, it's heavy. It's, like, weighing down my ribcage or something - ouch, hey! No, come back-”

“Nah, man, I wouldn't wanna prevent you from breathing with my _giant head_ ,” Tyler says, partly sitting up.

Josh can tell he's not serious, so he grins.

“Come back?” He says, shifting along a little.

Tyler makes a big show of rolling his eyes as he lies back down next to Josh, throwing an arm over his side.

“Dibs on being the big spoon,” He says, shuffling in close.

“Ugh,” Josh says, but he turns to settle on his side, curling his hand around Tyler's where it rests on his stomach. He feels Tyler fall asleep not that long later, snoring a little into Josh's hair and burrowing in even closer.

Josh just lies there, staring nothing, wishing he could switch his brain off for just one second.

-

They get away with it (whatever the hell _it_ is) as a secret for a long time. Longer than Josh thought they would, considering some days Tyler's, like, not subtle at all. The number of times his hand has made its way onto Josh's leg when they're crammed into diner benches and Josh has just sat there, desperately wanting to reach down and hold his hand. He ends up sitting there every time, feeling trapped, like as soon as he moves his hand all of the guys' eyes are gonna snap straight to him, somehow knowing exactly what he's doing.

When they actually get found out, it all happens really fast.

It starts with Tyler slipping out of the shower in their shared hotel room. Josh is kind of struck dumb by him in that moment, even though he doesn't seductively exit the bathroom so much as he awkwardly shuffles out with about four towels draped over him, humming under his breath. Josh is kind of lying in the middle of the two beds (they pushed them together to make a double – they've been doing that forever, even before this whole _thing_ started).

Tyler just starts dumping the towels next to him so unselfconsciously, like he's alone in the room, and there's something about that – about how much Tyler doesn't care that he's there - that makes Josh drop his phone and reach for him.

Reaching quickly changes to, like, rolling around on the bed, with Tyler's towels discarded somewhere Josh honestly doesn't care about right now, not when Tyler's skin's damp under his hands and they're kind of laughing in between slow kisses.

It's moments like this that make something deep inside Josh ache. It's moments like this, he thinks, mouthing at Tyler's jawline and closing his eyes when he hears his breath hitch, when he wishes this wasn't some secret, some tour arrangement, some – whatever Tyler thinks this is.

He wishes he had the guts to actually say all this to Tyler. It doesn't feel right, keeping something this big to himself. He always tells Tyler everything, because he always knows what to do and never judges Josh or makes him feel dumb for worrying about small things.

Except all of this feels fragile – the fact that he can do this, touch Tyler and have him arch into it, kiss him and be kissed back – and the last thing Josh wants is to mess it up.

He can tolerate the worry if this is his reward, he thinks.

It's around that time, when Tyler's just hooked a leg around Josh's to pull him down closer, that their hotel room door opens.

“Guys, I was – oh my God, oh my God,” Mark says, and before they can even scramble to make the situation look any better he's gone, the door shutting with a snap behind him.

Tyler's eyes are wide when Josh looks at him, his heart beating so hard he can feel it in his eardrums.

“I'll go,” He says, feeling dizzy when he gets up, like his brain's present but his body's taking a while to catch up with the whole _not kissing_ part of the situation. “I – it's okay, I'll talk to him, I'll go.”

He runs a hand through his hair and takes a deep breath before opening the door, dimly aware of the fact that his shirt is damp because Tyler hadn't been completely dry after his shower. Tugging the hem down awkwardly, he shuffles out into the hall.

“Oh my God,” Mark's saying under his breath, running his hands through his hair and moving this way and that, funny little aborted steps on the hallway carpet. “Oh my God, oh my God-”

“Dude,” Josh says, feeling like he might throw up everywhere. Mark doesn't even look him in the eye. “Dude, you need to calm down.”

“Oh my God,” He keeps saying.

“Look, we – we know what we're doing,” Josh says, because he doesn't know what else to say. It just trips off his tongue, some dumb phrase Josh probably said to his mom and dad about his girlfriends in high school. That's exactly what he feels like – like some teenager caught making out with a girl in his childhood bedroom. Except – except this is Mark, and they didn't ever consider this, and -

“Oh my God,” Mark says again, muttering it on each exhale like he can't help it.

“Dude,” Josh says, trying to keep his voice low and even when he's freaking the fuck out. “Dude, you need to-”

“What the hell are you thinking?” Mark hisses, suddenly turning on his heel and hitting Josh's shoulder with the back of his hand. “What – what the _hell_ are you -”

“Look, maybe you should've knocked, okay?” Josh says, defensively. He feels embarrassed and stupid, and the last thing he needs right now is Mark's weird freakout about this just because him and Tyler are both dudes, like _whatever_. “Like – since when do you just walk right in-”

“Since all the time!” Mark says, gesturing so wildly that he nearly hits Josh in the face.

“Yeah, well, maybe don't,” Josh says, voice rising a little against his will. “Look, you're acting like this is such a problem, I'm like -”

He's _hurt_ , that's what he is. It's not like he never thought about this – about what'd happen if people found out, if Mark found out, but he'd sort of imagined it in a more favorable way than this. He'd had, like, rose tinted daydreams of times when he and Tyler could hold hands on the bus couch and have the guys just roll their eyes fondly like, _oh shit here these two go again_. He'd never really let himself think about – about _this_.

“A problem?” Mark's saying, his voice getting all squeaky. Josh hasn't seen him this agitated like, ever before in his entire life. “You guys just – just –“

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Josh says, in this mean voice that sounds nothing like him. “It's not _contagious_ , okay, you're not gonna want to get down with dudes now just because-”

“I can't believe you didn't lock the fucking _door_ , are you _serious_?”

“Wait, what?” They say, simultaneously.

Mark stares at him.

“What the fuck?” He hisses, moving in closer at last, like he's finally realised they're having this conversation in a _hotel hallway_ , for fuck's sake. “You – dude, I – you really think I'm that kind of guy?”

He falls back a little at that, looking deflated, and Josh feels adrift, all of his anger and defensiveness burning into nothing inside him in a matter of seconds.

“I,” He says, lamely. “I...”

“Lock your hotel room door, man,” Mark says, shaking his head a little. “Like – what you guys do is, like, you guys' business, but – but shit, fuck, do you want it to be Twitter's business too? You fucking assholes,” He adds, when Tyler finally ducks out of the hotel room, looking sheepish. His damp hair's sticking up every which way and he's wearing a holey old tank top of Josh's and shorts. “I'm serious, like – I could've been _anyone_ , I could've been – I could've been some random guy with a camera, or like – I don't fucking know-”

“Maybe we should talk about this, like, not out here,” Tyler says, giving the surrounding doors little flickering glances.

They end up traipsing back into the hotel room and shutting the door.

Mark gives the rumpled beds these speculative, grossed out little looks until Josh says, “Ok, _now_ you're just being an asshole.”

“How am I being an asshole?” Mark demands. “Like – like – who actually wants to see their friend's dicks, man? I mean -” He pauses, expression softening into something like a smile. “I mean – I guess you guys do but-”

Tyler makes a weird noise that might be a laugh and turns away to face the wall while Josh claps a hand over his eyes.

“Can we just, like,” Tyler says. When Josh looks at him he's bright red, touching the back of his hand to his face, and for all of half a second Josh gets struck with this rush of wanting to walk over there and feel how warm his face has gotten for himself, just skim the tops of his cheekbones with his fingertips, just because. “Like, bus call's early tomorrow, I kinda wanna get to bed - shut _up_ , okay,” He adds, already half laughing when Mark opens his mouth, probably to say something gross.

“I wasn't gonna say anything!”

“Oh dude, come on,” Josh says, because even he doesn't believe that.

“Okay, like, maybe I was gonna say one thing,” Mark says. When he smiles and Tyler laughs, shaking his head, Josh feels like a crushing weight just got pulled off his chest. “Seriously, though, lock the door?”

“We will,” Josh says.

“And,” Tyler gives Josh this inscrutable look across the room before looking back to Mark. “Like, can we keep this, like...between us?”

“Yeah, dude, we're not telling anyone,” Josh says, quickly, even though his heart's sinking a little. If that's what makes Tyler happy and comfortable then that's what works for him too. “So, like, you can't tell anyone either.”

“I won't,” Mark says, and makes a little cross shape over his heart. That gesture alone makes Josh feel like even more of a shitty friend for assuming that Mark had been having some dude on dude freakout – but like, honestly, what else was he meant to think? “I – wait, how long have you guys been...?” He gestures vaguely between the two of them.

“Dude, no,” Josh says, moving over to escort him to the door.

“And, like,” Mark says, letting himself be led away. “Tell me you guys haven't...? On the bus?”

“See you tomorrow, man,” Tyler says as Josh opens the door for him.

Mark gives Josh this scrutinising look and Josh twists his mouth awkwardly, feeling himself flush.

“Oh my God,” Mark says, pulling a face like he just ate a ton of sour candy as he steps out into the hall. “You guys are, like, steam cleaning the bus couches, I swear.”

“Night,” Josh says, ignoring him and shutting the door.

Both of their phones buzz with a text about half a second later.

“ _We're not done talking about this_ ,” Tyler reads out, leaning across the bed to reach his phone where it's plugged in. Now that they're alone Josh just – he's just staring at Tyler's shoulders and his arms like an idiot, like all it takes is being alone and Tyler just being there forces every other thought out of his head. “I'm -” He straightens up, looking at Josh, and then breathes out a laugh. “The door.”

“The door,” Josh says, and turns to lock it.

“I mean, on a scale of all the really awkward things that've ever happened to us, that's like – the top, surely, like...”

“I dunno man, my limbo injury was pretty awkward,” Josh says, just to make Tyler smile. He's not disappointed.

“That bruise was so bad,” Tyler says, faltering a little when Josh starts walking over to him. He's still pretty red in the face, fingers twisting in the bottom of his tank top. He's gonna stretch it out like he has with all of the others he's borrowed, Josh can tell. He doesn't care.

“Like, so bad,” Josh says, dumbly, because apparently all he can do is repeat stuff right now, like his brain's short circuited. He finally gets close enough to gently pull Tyler's fingers out of the knots they're twisting themselves into, feeling like every gulp of breath is too heavy for his throat.

Tyler's eyes flicker to his mouth. He says, “I,” then stops, closing his eyes and smiling at himself. “ _Stop_ , I can't, like, talk when you're looking at me like that.”

“So let's not talk,” Josh says, softly, and kisses him.


End file.
